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Comment by helloworld11 | Hacker News Reader

I don't see the internal combustion engine being anywhere close to any scrap heap of history any time soon. Even if a certain subset of consumer cars are moving over to electric motors at an accelerating pace, there are still plenty of major hurdles against these engines for a while yet, and many, many practical applications in which these hurdles just don't let electric cut the ice in place of combustion and power. There are over 31 million joules, or just under 9 kWhr in a single liter of gasoline. I know of no consumer market electric motor or battery that comes even close to this density.

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I'm a huge fan of ICE vehicles. In the interest of fairness I feel obligated to point out that electric motors are far more power dense than any mass produced ICE. Motor technology really could freeze forever and they would still be amazing.

Batteries can have any power density you want its really more of an aspect of pack design.

The only defficiency of EVs is the energy density of batteries.

Motors: high power density

Batteries: medium to high power density, low energy density

ICE: low to medium power density

Gasoline: high energy density

I get the feeling electrification of vehicles is going to happen in a geographically similar fashion to the American political divide. EVs work very well in urban areas, but are less ideal for rural use for the reasons you mentioned. There's also the cultural issue of it - working on cars is a classic pastime once you leave the cities and the anti-repair nature of EVs doesn't fit well with this.

I completely agree. I also wanted to add that ICE vehicles made after ~2010 (depending on manufacurer) also have an anti-repair nature. My Cruze has many parts that require dealership programming (encryption keys) before the ECU will talk with them. Like the ABS unit and fuel pump for example.

There is no going back now. The age of new repairable cars has ended.

If this becomes more widespread, it will be a sad state of affairs. One basic hallmark of ownership absolutely should be the technical ability to personally repair your property or at least have it repaired by professionals entirely of your choosing. I really hope you're wrong and that a certain consumer demand ensures they keep existing. Auto makers locking you into their own dealerships with encrypted digital parts is the hardware equivalent of keeping all your digital "property" on a single giant platform instead of self hosting.

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